In the making of hollow blown articles such as containers from plastic material, it has heretofore been suggested that labels be held in the cavities of mold sections by vacuum so that when parisons are blown outwardly into conformity with the cavities, the labels become adhered or bonded to the article.
In one type of apparatus, commonly known as injection-blow apparatus, parisons in the form of tubes are extruded from an extruder into neck molds on a head. The head includes label handling vacuum devices which remove labels from magazines and deposit the labels in the cavities of the mold sections.
When the labels are thin and made of plastic, one of the problems is that the vacuum devices tend to remove a plurality of labels at one time and another problem is that the labels can be easily damaged.
Accordingly, among the objectives of the present invention are to provide an in-mold labeling system which will obviate the problems of multiple labels and label damage where thin plastic labels are used.
In accordance with the invention, provision is made for moving the vacuum cups in a controlled slow manner upon removing the labels thereby obviating problems of removing multiple labels or damaging the labels when they are made of material such as plastic.